The present disclosure relates generally to information handling systems, and more particularly to a coupling for a fan bay including fans with a information handling system chassis.
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option is an information handling system (IHS). An IHS generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements may vary between different applications, IHSs may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in IHSs allow for IHSs to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, IHSs may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
IHSs typically include fan assemblies that are coupled to an IHS chassis in order to provide cooling for the heat producing components located in the IHS chassis. As IHSs grow and the heat producing components become greater in number and power, more and more fan assemblies are required to keep those heat producing components cool. The coupling of these multiple fan assemblies to the IHS chassis raises a number of issues.
Typically, a fan bay is provided that defines multiple fan assembly housings, each which can house a fan assembly. That fan bay is coupled to the IHS chassis and adjacent the IHS board in order to allow multiple fan assemblies to be coupled to the fan bay, the board, and the chassis. However, conventional chassis component tolerance stacks exceed the gathering limits between the board, the cooling fan connectors, the fan assembly, and fan bay. This results in the need to couple the fan bay to the chassis first, then couple each fan assembly to the fan bay in order to ensure the connector on the fan assembly correctly mates with the fan connector on the board. Some IHSs can include fan bays that house six or more cooling fans, so such a process greatly adds to the assembly time of the IHS.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a coupling for a fan bay including fans with a chassis absent the disadvantages found in the prior methods discussed above.